Account maintenance, filing or transfer fees, credit card fees… Have these amounts deducted by banks from their customers’ accounts increased this year? According to the statement from the Bank Fees Observatory (OTB), which takes into account 14 types of average costs, some have remained stable and others have increased.
The OTB emanates from a body, the Consultative Committee of the Financial Sector (CCSF), in which representatives of financial establishments and clients, parliamentarians and union representatives sit equally.
In detail, eight tariffs remained stable or almost stable in 2022, five went up and only one went down. This is the subscription to remote banking services, which goes from 19 cents to 18 cents a year.
Transfer and account maintenance fees on the rise
The most significant increase (+5.32%) corresponds to the cost of a transfer made in an office. The latter is charged on average 4.55 euros. Two basic services also increased: account maintenance fees (+4.33%) and direct debit payment with immediate debit card (+1.19%).
On January 5, 2022, therefore, it was necessary to have an average of 20.23 euros per year for the account management service -that is, 2.5 times more than ten years ago- and 42.46 euros per year for a Visa or Mastercard payment with immediate direct debit (+12% over 10 years).
Together with the “à la carte” rates, the Banking Rates Observatory analyzed the packages or service packages (OGS). You have to have an average annual contribution of 92.71 euros in a network bank for a basic pack (bank card, account maintenance, sending and receiving transfers, checkbook…).
219.90 euros in bank charges each year
But this fee is still far from the real cost of a bank for the year. The study carried out by the comparator Panorabanques at the beginning of 2022 showed that bank commissions amounted to an average of 219.90 euros per year, an expense greater than 1.5% compared to the previous year.
Multiple costs do inflate the bill: intervention commissions in the event of incidents of rejection of checks or transfers (7.35 euros on average), replacement of a bank card before the expiration date (11.09 euros), fixed rates from the fourth withdrawal of cash from ATMs other than those of the bank itself (1.01 euros per additional withdrawal), etc.
In September, Bercy obtained from the banks that they do not increase their prices by more than 2% next year and that they go from 3 to 1 euro per month “the offer for fragile customers”. Insufficient gestures according to consumer associations.
Source: BFM TV
